IN the soft, starless summer night
No murmur swims along the air,
Wrapped in her dim and dusky veil
Earth seems to slumber everywhere.
All the still dews in hiding lie,
With unrobbed sweetness droops the rose,
Nor up nor down the garden walks
A slight or stealthy zephyr blows.
Darkness and hush, profoundest peace ;
The falling leaf forgets to float ;
When with one deep and mighty throb
Along the headland strikes the rote ! —
Strikes with the awful undertone
Of some great storm’s tremendous blast,
That far through white mid-seas ploughs on
To scream around a broken mast!
But here the swell shall heave to shore
A muffled music, till it seem
The trouble of the sea become
Only the burden of a dream !
Harriet Prescott Stafford.